TWO OF A KIND
Wow, this is the quickest update for this story, thus far. Once I posted that last chapter, I just started writing like crazy. As of right now, this is my all-time favorite chapter of the whole bunch.
Read for yourselves and see, but be forewarned: emotions get pretty messy in this one.
Characters (excluding Terence) © C.S. Lewis and Disney/Walden Media
Terence and Story © unicorn-skydancer08
All rights reserved.
Chapter 5
"Oh, dear," said Susan softly when Tumnus had disappeared from their sight.
Terence only stood where he was for a short time, then he closed his eyes and bowed his head to his chest in defeat, sighing heavily.
"Don't worry, Terence," Lucy said, gently linking her arm with the young man's arm and stroking his shoulder with her free hand in an attempt to reassure him. "I'm sure Tumnus didn't mean it. He was just…upset."
"I can't say I blame him, though," said Terence in a low voice. "I'd never realized he'd missed me this badly."
"We all missed you very much," Lucy informed him. "We didn't know where you could be, and there was no way of knowing for certain that you were all right."
"Tumnus has been a real wreck these days," said Edmund, stepping into the conversation. "He was nothing short of devastated without you, Terence. It's a miracle his grief hadn't killed him."
Lifting his face somewhat, Terence said sadly, "But now that I'm here, Tumnus won't even see me, let alone talk to me. What am I supposed to do, now?"
"Just give him time," Peter said. "It surely was a nasty shock to him, as it was—and still is—to all of us, to suddenly see you again after you disappeared…and especially like this." He made a brief gesture at Terence's human form.
"I'm sorry," said Terence ruefully to the entire group. "I'm sorry I was gone for so long. And I'm sorry I lost touch with you all. Can you forgive me? Can we start over, and be friends?"
Lucy smiled at him and willingly hugged him again. "I'm in favor of that," she said.
"So am I," said Edmund, now smiling himself as he went over and gave Terence a genial pat on the back.
Peter and Susan both agreed. "You are to stay here with us, at the Cair," Peter insisted. "Our home is your home. You'll be our guest of honor."
"Thank you, Peter," said Terence, managing a partial smile. "It will truly be an honor."
All the rest of that day, Tumnus shut himself up in his room. This was nothing new, of course, except everyone else was baffled about why Tumnus was evading Terence, when Terence was right there in the castle. If the faun missed his friend so much, why was he going out of his way to stay away from him now? Surely the faun should rejoice that the old unicorn lived, and had come back. Some at the Cair could not get over the shock of seeing Terence with an entirely different body, but most were genuinely pleased to see him. The Beavers were particularly thrilled. "Oh, Terence," Mrs. Beaver gushed to the boy, "I just can't believe it's you! I never thought to see you again."
"It's wonderful to see you again, too, Mrs. Beaver," said Terence warmly, and he knelt down so that they could embrace one another.
Old Beaver said, in his rich, slightly sticky accent, "If I didn't see with me own eyes or hear with me own ears, I'd never believe it was you, old boy. In fact, even now, I still can't believe it."
No doubt everyone was burning to know everything that came about Terence during his years of nonexistence in Narnia, but Terence was in no condition to tell them, and Peter saw to it that the boy wasn't hounded.
More than anybody else, it was Tumnus that Terence longed to see. But the faun's door remained locked, and though several people called to him, beckoning him to come out, the faun never answered.
Towards the end of the day, Lucy knocked on Tumnus's door herself, hoping that she might be able to talk to the faun, to soften him up some.
"Tumnus," she said mildly, "it's me. Will you let me in? Please let me in."
Somehow, Tumnus couldn't bring himself to refuse Lucy, and after some hesitancy, the door was slowly dragged aside, inch by inch.
When Tumnus's face was finally revealed, he was quite a sight, indeed. He looked very sickly. With his thoroughly bloodshot eyes, his limp, tangled curls, and his face all but wasted and whiter than a sheet, Lucy hardly knew him anymore. Tumnus never said a word, but stepped dutifully to the side and allowed Lucy to enter. Lucy never hung back. "Tumnus," she said solicitously once she was in the room with him, "are you all right? You look positively dreadful."
"Terence is still here, isn't he?" said Tumnus in a husky voice. "He's right here in the Cair, isn't he?" It was more of a statement than a downright question.
"Of course, he is," Lucy said, surprised and stung. "Peter's invited him to stay, and Terence agreed. The castle is now his home, as much as it is yours."
Tumnus only gave out a groan and dropped into the nearest chair, next to the empty fireplace, his face in his hands.
"That insolent rogue just can't take a hint, can he?" he bemoaned. "Hasn't he tortured me enough already?"
Lucy moved carefully around him and knelt directly in front of the chair. "But Tumnus," she protested, "surely you wouldn't really want Terence to leave, would you? After he's come such a long way, and most especially after his long absence?"
Tumnus said nothing to this, only sank his head further into his hands.
"I thought you'd be glad to know for yourself that he's alive," Lucy continued. "Yes, I'll admit he's changed, but in all the important ways, he's still Terence. I thought you missed him, that you would have given anything to see him again."
"I thought I did," Tumnus muttered, looking up very slowly from his palms, his expression a mixture of confusion and incredible sadness. "But now, I'm not so sure anymore."
"You've got your best friend back," Lucy persisted. "Isn't that enough, Tumnus? What more do you want?"
Tumnus's eyes shone with a new layer of tears, and his face looked more tragic than anything Lucy had ever seen.
"I don't know, Lucy," the faun said mournfully, his shoulders sagging, his tears spilling freely. He let his head drop into his hands once more as he wept, "I just don't understand why Terence wasn't there for me when I needed him most."
Laying her hand gently against Tumnus's knee, Lucy said softly, "Begging your pardon, Tumnus, but I believe the question ought to be—why did Terence come back?"
This apparently caught Tumnus's interest, for the faun's head jerked up yet again. His eyes continued to swim in a pool of tears, and amid the waves of overwhelming sorrow, there was a subtle hint of perplexity. Lucy now reached for Tumnus's hand, twining her fingers in his, as she told him, "If Terence didn't care about you, or about any of us, would he have bothered to return to Narnia in the first place? Don't you think he's missed you as much as you've missed him?"
Tumnus became very still at these questions. In his mind's eye, he could see the look on Terence's face from that afternoon. He recalled how Terence chased him relentlessly through the forest, all the way to the castle itself.
He recalled how passionately Terence had embraced Lucy when she'd gone to him, and how freely he'd wept with her.
Terence really had missed them, it dawned on Tumnus.
He truly must have; he wouldn't have done any of those things otherwise.
"No one is perfect, you know," said Lucy when Tumnus didn't speak, "not even me. All of us make mistakes at one point or another. I missed Terence terribly, too. My grief at being separated from him was almost as great as yours. But I rejoice in his return; I rejoice at knowing that we are together again, that we have a chance to start fresh. Don't let this precious opportunity go to waste, Tumnus. If you love Terence, hold fast to him; fight for him. Don't let your pride stand in the way of telling someone you love and care about that you want him back." Tumnus felt these eloquent and infinitely wise words weave their way into his heart, breaking his shield of resistance.
They melted something deep within him, and the runoff emerged through his eyes. The faun still could not speak, but he was quivering noticeably, from his petal-shaped ears to his cloven hooves. His breathing sounded in weak, ragged sobs.
Right at that moment, Lucy became aware that they were no longer alone. When she turned her head to the side, she saw that Terence himself stood by the door—which had, conveniently enough, been left open a considerable crack.
Though a man, Terence evidently maintained the stealth of a unicorn.
Lucy could not tell how long he had been standing there, watching her and Tumnus and listening to their conversation, but he seemed to have heard enough.
When Tumnus saw his old mate, his posture stiffened only slightly, and all he said was, "Terence."
"May I come in?" Terence petitioned.
Tumnus didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either, so Terence tentatively moved a little further into the room.
He had long since removed his cloak, and Tumnus saw that the young man was dressed in simple but very fine clothes. Terence wore a black, skin-tight tunic with long sleeves, under a sleek, much more loose-fitting blue frock trimmed with gold, with a black leather belt tied around his lean waist. A piece of some heavy, dark blue cloth draped casually around his shoulders, like a shawl; a pair of jet-black hosiery hugged his long, slim, well-formed legs, and finally, on his feet, he sported a fine pair of brown ankle boots that fit quite nicely. Lucy promptly rose up from the floor and went to Terence, but Tumnus stayed put. He saw Lucy whisper something into Terence's ear, then she patted the young man on the shoulder, as if to wish him luck, before she headed out of the room. She made sure to close the door all the way behind her as she left, so that Terence and Tumnus could have some peace.
There was a long, awkward silence between the two friends. Tumnus merely looked at Terence, and Terence stared intently back with those soulful, overwhelmingly blue eyes of his. Tears continued to ooze steadily down Tumnus's cheeks, but the faun never made a sound. In the end, Terence was the one to break the uncanny silence. "Tumnus, we need to talk."
Tumnus said nothing.
"Come on, old mate," Terence persisted when Tumnus turned away from him. "Will you just listen to me? Will you at least hear me out?"
Still, Tumnus would not answer. Terence walked all the way over to him—or floated over, more or less. The man was so light on his feet that they seemed to barely touch the floor.
He settled quietly onto the armrest of the chair Tumnus was in, and there he remained, very still and perfectly poised. He did not attempt to touch Tumnus in any way, though he looked like he very much wanted to. Even then, Tumnus held his tongue and never spoke. Notwithstanding Terence was right beside him, the faun wouldn't look at the boy, either. Terence's shoulders drooped, and a look of immense sorrow clouded his eyes.
"Please, Tumnus," he now whispered, as if imploring for mercy, "don't do this. I've come all this way to see you. Don't reject me now."
Solid pain was engraved almost indelibly into Tumnus's face. His anger was gone, but not his frustration.
When the faun did finally peer up at Terence, when he found his tongue, he said hoarsely, "Where have you been, Terence, all this time? Where were you?"
Terence sighed deeply, and covered his face with his hands.
With his hands over his face, the young man slowly and sorrowfully shook his head from side to side, a good number of times, before he lifted his head and opened his eyes again. "As I have said before, Tumnus," he said in a soft, weary tone, "it's a very long story…perhaps too long a story to tell in one sitting, and much of it I have no desire to recall. If everything that's come about me these past five years was written down in books, I doubt your library could hold them all."
"Why did you leave?" protested Tumnus.
"I didn't mean to," Terence said, looking, sounding, and feeling like a small child caught doing something wrong. "Something just happened, that's all. Somehow, my life ended up taking a different course."
He spent the next half-hour or so telling Tumnus what he felt the faun needed to know, never going into much detail—because, as he said, it was a story far too long and too complex to tell at once—but giving Tumnus a general idea of where he'd been, what he'd been up to, and how he went from unicorn to human. Even with the sparse details, Tumnus found the boy's story overpowering, and he found himself shedding more tears than ever.
When Terence was finished, for the time being, Tumnus couldn't speak or move from that spot, at least not right away.
Finally Terence bowed his head, and said in his humblest voice, "Forgive me, Tumnus. I know that I hurt you…and if there was some way I could take away the pain, I'd do so in a heartbeat."
The plea seemed sincere, and Tumnus felt his heart go out to his old friend, genuine compassion replacing the bitterness within him. It was also the faun's turn to feel shame this time—shame for not listening to Terence before, for being angry with him, for nearly sending him away several times. He sickened to think about how close he'd come to losing Terence all over again.
Perhaps it was a good thing the young unicorn had a stubborn streak about him, after all.
"I want to come back," Terence went on earnestly, "if you'll still have me."
"Yes," Tumnus ultimately found himself saying. "Yes, Terence…yes, of course, you can come back." The moment these words passed his lips, he knew them to be true.
Terence looked up, his countenance hopeful, and Tumnus quietly confessed, "I…I missed you."
"I missed you, too, mate. More than you know."
"I've been worried about you. I was terribly afraid something might have happened to you, and I wasn't there."
"Well, I was in a few tight spots here and there," Terence admitted, "but I managed to make it through all right."
"I thought you'd left me forever," said Tumnus as tears continued to slide down his skin, "or worse, forgotten all about me."
The look Terence gave him was enough to stop his heart. There wasn't the least degree of anger or resentment in that look—only devastating sadness.
"I could never forget you, Tumnus," said Terence in an unusually hushed voice. "How can you say that? You're my best friend, one of the very few and very dearest friends I have ever had in my life. More than a friend, you're my brother. You're a literal part of me." Tears of his own shone like diamonds in his sapphire eyes as he added in a whisper, "I love you."
Those last three words were all it took to crush Tumnus completely. He almost couldn't believe his ears. Terence just said that he loved him, actually loved him. Not just as a friend, and not just as a brother, either.
I love you—as pure and simple as that.
Certainly, Tumnus had heard such words many times in his life. But hearing them from Terence in this manner…they took on a much deeper, more hallowed meaning. The faun's tears poured forth in a thick, steady flood, and his throat was so tight he could scarcely breathe. Lucy was right; friendship, true, honest friendship, was a treasure too priceless to lose. How could Tumnus have almost let it get away from him?
As much as it had wounded him to have Terence gone, somehow that didn't matter anymore. He was here now. Though changed, he was still Terence.
Their paths had crossed once more. What more could Tumnus ask for than this?
"Oh, Terence," was all Tumnus could say before he lost it altogether.
He never held back anymore. He forthwith seized onto Terence, hugging him as tightly as he had the strength, weeping hysterically. He squeezed so hard that his arms ached.
Terence let the faun hold him, and never once pulled away. He willingly returned the fervent embrace, without the least bit of hesitation.
This made Tumnus realize something.
As a unicorn, Terence had never been able to hug him. He'd just stand perfectly still on all fours, or lie quietly on the ground, and allow Tumnus to cling to his neck. He would often nuzzle the faun's hair, and occasionally lick his forehead.
But now, Terence had arms that he could actually wrap Tumnus in, and he could hold Tumnus the way Tumnus held him.
Now he had hands that could fondle and caress Tumnus, and the young man did exactly that. While one hand rested on the nape of the faun's neck, where Tumnus's curly hair started to make a trail down his back, the other moved over the faun's lower back in light, soothing circles. Tumnus's tears seeped steadily into the youth's clothes, which was not good for the expensive material, but Terence didn't seem to care.
He only held Tumnus closer, rocking him as gently as a mother rocking her distressed child. Tumnus felt a kiss from Terence brush against his hair, and though the faun could not see it, Terence was shedding a fair number of tears as well.
By the time Tumnus couldn't cry anymore, when he at last began to settle down, he felt incredibly weak, yet somehow refreshed, as if a cool, sweet rain had cleansed him.
With his forehead still bowed against Terence's front, he slowly breathed in the man's scent. He smelled like the woods, like fresh pine and cedar, mingled with acacia and lilac, and Tumnus could swear he caught a trace of violets, too.
Terence had always smelled unusually good for a unicorn, and he still retained most of that smell.
The two remained together that way, wrapped in each other's arms, for a long time. Terence seemed in no hurry to leave; and quite frankly, Tumnus didn't want him to ever leave.
He'd already lost the unicorn once; he didn't intend to lose him again.
"Don't go, Terence," he pleaded. "Please, I beg you, d-don't walk out of my life again. I-I didn't mean what I said earlier today. I didn't mean any one of those…those cruel things."
"I know you didn't," Terence soothed him. "Don't worry, Tumnus. I'm not going anywhere."